By RunDoyen.
Featuring coaching insights from Dave Berdan and Jacob Phillips.
RunDoyen connects runners with expert online running coaches and race-focused training plans built around real goals, real schedules, and long-term progress.
TL;DR
- Marathon fitness is built through consistent training, not one spectacular workout.
- Easy days should be easy enough that you can execute the important sessions well.
- A workout is not automatically better because you ran faster than prescribed.
- Fueling and hydration should be practiced during training, not improvised on race day.
- Heat, schedule constraints, and individual response can justify adjusting pace or changing a session.
If you want your training shaped around your own background, schedule, and race goal, Get Matched with a RunDoyen coach.
Table of Contents
- Stop trying to win your workouts
- Make easy days easy enough
- Practice fueling before race day
- Build consistency around your real life
- Use a decision framework instead of forcing the plan
- Common marathon training mistakes
- Safety and when to get help
- Build a better marathon process
1. Stop Trying to Win Your Workouts
One of the easiest marathon training mistakes to make is turning every key session into a test.
A workout says 5:15 pace, so you run 5:10. Then 5:05. If you still feel good, you finish even faster.
That can feel productive because the watch gives you immediate proof that you are fit. The problem is that marathon training is not designed around winning Tuesday morning. The objective is to accumulate enough appropriate work that you can perform on race day.
Looking back on his own competitive marathon training, Dave Berdan described doing workouts that looked extremely impressive on paper. In hindsight, he felt some of those sessions were too hard. His takeaway was that he would have dialed certain workouts back by roughly 10 percent in effort.
That distinction matters.
A runner can be fit enough to survive an enormous workout without that workout being the best choice for the overall training cycle. Every session sits inside a larger week, and every week sits inside a larger build.
The useful question is not, “How fast can I run this workout?”
It is, “What does this workout need to accomplish while allowing me to keep training?”
That is also why a structured marathon training plan should be viewed as a progression, not a collection of isolated tests.
A specific long-run example
At his peak, Berdan enjoyed demanding marathon long runs. One example was roughly 22 miles with four 3-mile segments around 5:10 pace, with approximately one-mile floats around 6:00 pace between harder segments.
That is a highly athlete-specific example, not a target workout for the average marathoner.
What matters is the sequencing logic. The harder running was placed inside a much longer continuous effort, and the recovery portions were still running rather than complete rest. For an athlete prepared for that type of work, it created a demanding marathon-specific session.
The mistake would be copying the numbers without copying the years of development that made those numbers appropriate.
2. Make Easy Days Easy Enough
Marathoners often understand that recovery matters while still running their easy days harder than necessary.
The reasons are familiar. A certain pace looks better on Strava. Another runner passes you. Your normal loop feels effortless, so you gradually speed up. You start judging the quality of an easy run by the pace instead of by its role in the week.
But if your easy day creates enough fatigue to compromise the next important workout, it may no longer be serving its purpose.
Berdan traced one of his own major training lessons to seeing very fast runners deliberately run much slower than he expected on ordinary aerobic days. That helped reinforce a principle he later carried into coaching: slow down on easy runs so you can be ready for the work that deserves more intensity.
RunDoyen’s guide to easy run pace and recovery days expands on the role those runs can play in a balanced training week.
This does not mean every easy run must hit a single rigid pace. It means the effort should match the purpose.
The marathon rewards patience. That starts months before race day.
3. Practice Fueling Before Race Day
A marathon can look straightforward on paper. Build mileage. Complete long runs. Add race-specific work. Taper. Race.
Execution becomes more complicated when fueling enters the picture.
Berdan identified fueling as one of the biggest challenges in his own marathoning, and he emphasized that the runners he coaches do not all use identical strategies. Their backgrounds differ. Their previous experiences differ. Their tolerance differs.
That is the important coaching lesson: fueling should be practiced and individualized.
Waiting until race morning to find out how your body responds is a risky approach. Long runs give you repeated opportunities to rehearse the behaviors you expect to use when racing.
That includes more than simply deciding what product to carry. The broader goal is familiarity. What can you tolerate while running? When does it feel comfortable? What happens late in a long effort? What routine is realistic for the actual race?
RunDoyen’s guide to nutrition for runners, hydration, fueling, and recovery provides additional context for building those habits into training.
The marathon already contains enough uncertainty. Fueling does not need to be one of the things you completely improvise.
4. Build Consistency Around Your Real Life
One of the strongest themes in effective distance training is also one of the least exciting: it takes time.
Runners often focus on the dramatic sessions because they are easy to remember. The real foundation is the ability to string together weeks and months of appropriate training.
That becomes especially important for adult runners balancing work, family, weather, and other responsibilities.
Two athletes training for the same marathon may need different plans because their lives are different. One runner may be able to train six days each week. Another may only have three or four consistent windows. One may handle a large long run well. Another may need more recovery around it.
This is where individualization becomes more than changing a pace chart.
Berdan described the initial consultation and ongoing communication as central to online coaching. Goals, history, availability, training response, workouts, long runs, and how the athlete actually feels all help shape what comes next.
That communication is particularly important online. A coach cannot simply watch every repetition and notice a runner struggling. The athlete’s feedback becomes part of the training data.
A good marathon training guide can give you the broader principles. Applying those principles to a specific runner still requires judgment.
Consistency is not the same thing as rigidly completing every planned mile. Sometimes consistency is protected by changing the plan before one difficult day becomes several bad days.
5. Use a Decision Framework Instead of Forcing the Plan
Marathon plans are useful because they create structure. They become less useful when runners treat them as instructions that cannot respond to reality.
Heat is a simple example.
If a runner has a demanding long run scheduled and the temperature climbs toward 90 degrees, trying to force the exact pace originally written for cooler conditions may change the nature of the workout.
The same issue can arise with work stress, travel, poor sleep, or an unusual accumulation of fatigue.
Berdan’s coaching approach in those situations is practical: communicate, then adjust. A pace-based workout might become effort-based. A key session might move to a cooler day. The runner still gets useful training without pretending conditions have not changed.
Marathon Training Decision Framework
- Start with the purpose of the session. Know whether the day is supposed to build aerobic volume, provide recovery, practice marathon-specific work, or create a harder stimulus.
- Check the conditions. Consider heat, humidity, terrain, schedule constraints, and anything else that materially changes the effort.
- Check your recent response. Look at how the previous workout, long run, and easy days actually felt.
- Choose pace or effort appropriately. If environmental conditions make the original pace misleading, effort may become the more useful guide.
- Protect the rest of the week. Do not turn one workout into such a large effort that several later sessions become compromised.
- Report what happened. When working with an online running coach, specific feedback about workouts and long runs helps guide the next adjustment.
The framework is simple because the central question is simple: does today’s choice help the entire training process, or only today’s watch data?
6. Common Marathon Training Mistakes
- Running workouts faster just because you can. A session should support the training cycle, not become a race against the assigned pace.
- Making easy days moderately hard. Repeatedly adding unnecessary intensity can reduce the freshness available for key workouts.
- Treating one big workout as proof of marathon readiness. Marathon preparation is the accumulation of training, not one standout session.
- Ignoring fueling until race week. Long runs are valuable opportunities to practice the routine you expect to use during the race.
- Copying another runner’s training numbers. A workout that makes sense for one athlete may be inappropriate for another runner’s history or volume.
- Forcing pace in difficult weather. Heat and humidity can change how an assigned pace feels and may justify an effort-based adjustment.
- Failing to communicate fatigue or changing circumstances. A coach can make better decisions when the athlete explains how training is actually going.
- Expecting rapid progress from inconsistent training. Distance running rewards long-term development.
7. Safety and When to Get Help
General guidance: Training adjustments are different from diagnosing or treating an injury or illness.
Normal training fatigue can happen during marathon preparation, but persistent or worsening pain, symptoms that change your running mechanics, or concerning symptoms during exercise are reasons to stop forcing the plan and seek appropriate medical evaluation.
Do not use a scheduled workout, mileage target, or race deadline as a reason to train through a problem that needs professional attention.
The goal is sustainable training, not simply completing every line on a calendar.
8. Build a Better Marathon Process
Marathon preparation becomes more effective when you stop treating every day as a referendum on your fitness.
Run easy enough when the day calls for easy running. Execute hard workouts with enough discipline that they remain training rather than racing. Practice fueling before race day. Adjust when weather or life changes the problem in front of you. Most importantly, keep building.
The runners who progress over the long term are not necessarily the ones with the most impressive Tuesday workout. They are the ones who repeatedly make decisions that allow good training to continue.
If you want individualized feedback on workouts, long runs, pacing, and race preparation, Browse Coaches to find a RunDoyen coach whose approach fits your goals.
FAQ
What is one of the most common marathon training mistakes?
Turning workouts into races is a common problem. Running faster than prescribed can feel like a sign of progress, but a workout should be judged by how well it supports the complete training cycle.
Should marathon easy runs always follow a specific pace?
Not necessarily. The key idea from the coaching discussion is that easy days should be easy enough to preserve freshness for harder work. Pace can vary based on the runner, terrain, weather, and accumulated fatigue.
When should I practice marathon fueling?
Fueling should be practiced during the training cycle, especially in longer efforts where you can learn what is realistic and tolerable. Leaving the entire strategy until race day creates unnecessary uncertainty.
What should I do if hot weather makes my workout pace unrealistic?
The coaching approach described here is to consider the purpose of the session and adjust when needed. That might mean running by effort, changing the pace, or moving the workout to a cooler day when your schedule allows.
Is the long run the most important marathon workout?
The long run is an important part of marathon preparation, but the larger lesson is that no single workout should be viewed in isolation. Consistency across the training cycle matters more than one exceptional session.
How can an online running coach help with marathon training?
Online run coaching can provide individualized adjustments based on your goals, training history, schedule, workout feedback, long-run response, and changing conditions. Because the coach is not physically present for every run, clear communication becomes especially important.
Should I copy marathon workouts from faster runners?
Usually not without considering context. The 22-mile session described in this article came from a highly trained runner at peak fitness, and its exact paces reflected that individual athlete. The useful lesson is the workout structure and purpose, not the numbers themselves.
